Substantive differences in the Reform of Land system

The first half of the 21st century is the key period for China to complete the transformation from a traditional agricultural society to a modern urban society. Urbanization is the migration process in which the farmers who account for the vast majority of the population change their occupation and residence, so it can be said that land plays a pivotal role in it. This is the reason why I have focused on the land issue over the years. Professor Zhou Qiren is a colleague in the academic circle I respect, and he has offered his advice on several occasions, including the latest article "Why urbanization cannot be achieved without farmland and houses to enter the market" (see the Economic Observer on September 8, 2014) has promoted my thinking on this issue. I also know that Professor Zhou's view on land is by no means a minority, but represents the mainstream opinion of a large number of economists who advise the government. In spite of this, in the academic spirit of "I love my teacher, I love the truth more", I write this article again to seek advice from his brothers and the general public.

Is people's urbanization awkward, or is it to the point?

Professor Zhou said last time that he had known me for many years, but he did not know that I studied the land issue, and he made a grand statement without studying it, which meant a lot of blame. Therefore, I carefully explained that in fact, I began to study the problem of human urbanization more than a decade ago when farmers went to work in cities. I have also worked hard for many years. It is not a rash move that "if you do not study, you may not be able to put forward correct opinions." Unexpectedly, after the explanation, Professor Zhou blamed me for studying too early this time. He said, "as for how it was put forward at that time, and whether someone else put forward it earlier, I did not check it." Judging from the current situation, no matter who the original belongs to, 'human urbanization'-- this' term'--I feel a little awkward. "

The ongoing large-scale urbanization requires farmers' land, but cannot accept them.

As a matter of fact, the purpose of raising a problem is just to study and solve it, and it doesn't matter who raises it first. But the real urbanization of people is a big deal for all developing countries. In particular, China's special household registration system has caused serious problems that farmers can not settle down in cities and citizenization. Therefore, I analyzed and said at that time that "the huge hindrance of urban hukou monopoly to China's development is far from enough attention." The biggest challenge facing China's development in the new century is the population pressure of relative resources, and the biggest problem for China to achieve the rapid growth of modernization in the new century is the lack of domestic demand. the crux of these two major problems lies in the low level of urbanization of the population. " By the end of the 20th century, according to statistics, the urban non-agricultural population is still hovering around 20%, and the other 10% listed as urban population only refers to the rural population currently entering cities and small towns. "it is no exaggeration to say that the ratio of the population with a legal urban hukou to the rural population is completely inverted compared with developed countries, which is the biggest irrationality of China's economic structure and the most fundamental reason for the country's insufficient domestic demand. It is also the most significant sign of the backwardness of China's social development stage and the biggest factor in the widening gap between the rich and the poor (see Breaking the Monopoly Ice, time Fortune Magazine, No. 1, 2001). This contradiction was alleviated due to China's subsequent accession to the WTO, so it did not attract attention. Therefore, on February 4, 2006, I stubbornly and rashly wrote to the then President and Prime Minister, bluntly criticizing the focus of national policy at that time, pointing out that "at present, the income gap between urban and rural areas in China is among the largest in the world. This contradiction will be the main contradiction in China in the next 20 years. But the main aspect of this contradiction lies not in agriculture, rural areas and farmers, but in urbanization. "what Chinese society urgently needs to put forward and implement is a new urbanization strategy. The starting point of this strategy is, first of all, to solve the problem of smooth transformation of the identity and status of farmers who have moved to cities within the framework of urban and rural co-ordination, and the second is to plan and layout the problem of about 15 million new farmers settling in cities every year. " But it was only after the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008 that the problem of urbanization, which was temporarily covered up by globalization, resurfaced more acutely and became a hot spot of policy and society in recent years.

In spite of this, I have never said and do not think that I have any original ideas on this issue. I believe that some people may have paid more attention to this issue from different angles earlier, but Professor Zhou said in the article, "as far as I know, professor Wen Guanzhong was the first to raise this issue," is certainly not rigorous. Professor Zhou specifically pointed out that "it was July 2009" in the preface to Professor Wen Guanzhong's new book "my people have no soil" this year. In fact, there was already a lot of discussion about human urbanization in China at that time, and Professor Wen himself said in his book that since the urban population contains 200 million migrant workers, "academia believes that China's real urbanization rate should deduct the share of migrant workers. As a result, it is only about 36%, and the official figure is jokingly called the 'pseudo urbanization rate'. As far as I can see, Professor Wen was skeptical about the urbanization rate of official statistics in 2007, but as a long-time scholar in American universities, until he returned to Shanghai to teach part-time in 2008, he published articles based on official data. As for Professor Zhou, Professor Wen proposed that land urbanization is faster than population urbanization, which involves what proportion of land and urban population grows better in the process of urbanization, which is another problem at the technical and economic level, which needs special comparison and research. Professor Wen did not say in the book that he put forward but quoted the views of others on China's urbanization, saying that he was in favor of this "to the point" induction. By the way, Professor Wen is a scholar who believes that only land privatization can save China. He communicated with me many times in the first few years of his return to China. In recent years, our views on land and urbanization are getting farther and farther away. However, despite his different views, he is still a scholar I respect.

Who made a joke about the ownership of collective land?

Professor Zhou quoted a quote I wrote elsewhere, "the collective land in our country's law now mainly refers to the land collectively owned by the administrative village", and then commented, "I can't believe it. The author has no common sense about the history and evolution of the rural collective 'three-level ownership and team-based'. We have no idea that most of the collective land in our country belongs to the production teams in the past-that is, today's natural villages, villagers' groups or "cooperatives"-rather than 'administrative villages' (that is, the 'brigades' in the past). Professor Zhou taught that "there is no need to bother too much, just check the 'collective land ownership' in Baidu Encyclopedia." you can see that the collective land ownership owned by the villagers' group (production team) accounts for more than 90% of the total area, so as not to make a joke. "if you come on stage with a hard injury at the level of a joke, don't you expose that it is short and gives others a handle? Watson also introduced himself, "at the age of 15, he went to the countryside to jump the queue and became a farmer for many years, and later he also did some rural surveys from time to time." In this way, how can we not even get anything wrong with 'collective land'? Let me write down my worries: with regard to urban construction, planning, land development, and other complex matters in Britain, the United States, Japan, Germany, Hong Kong, China, and other places that are far more complex and far less experienced than China's collective land, how can people feel secure in reading the 'statements of facts' that have been spoken all over the world in an undeniable tone? " Obviously, Professor Zhou's self-proclaimed "sorry to add a note" is not superfluous, but to see the whole through a small part, seize a "hard wound" of the other party, and then doubt and deny the credibility of all his statements and opinions.

Professor Zhou laughed and scolded like this, grabbed a little and beat his opponent to death with a stick, which was naturally pleasant. But it also contains a small risk, that is, this "hard wound" and "joke" that he has no doubt, if it is proved to be his own mistake or omission, all the objects of his ridicule and negation will fall entirely to himself. Because what Professor Zhou called "three-level ownership and team-based" of the collective economy is only the stipulation of Article 60 of the people's Commune promulgated in 1962, of which Article 21 makes it clear that "the land within the scope of the production team shall be owned by the production team". The amendment to the 1975 Constitution incorporated "three-level ownership and team-based" into Article 7 of the Seventh five-year Constitution. But Professor Zhou, who has a penchant for the extrajudicial world, does not seem to know that this formulation has been deleted from the 1982 Constitution, which was amended after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Article 10 of the Constitution of August 2 only states in general that "land in rural and urban suburbs shall be owned by collectives except as required by law," and will no longer dabble in which level. What seems even more unclear to Professor Zhou is that the General principles of the Civil Law of the people's Republic of China, adopted on April 12, 1986, explicitly abolished the idea that collective land is owned by the production team, that is, the present villagers' group. its Article 73 stipulates for the first time that "collectively owned land shall be collectively owned by village farmers in accordance with the law and shall be operated and managed by agricultural collective economic organizations such as village agricultural producers' cooperatives or villagers' committees." Since then, laws such as the Land Management Law and the property Law have copied this provision. Taking into account the historical situation, some laws add that those that already belong to villages and towns or two or more collective organizations in the village can continue to belong. It can be seen that the concept described in my previous article is quite accurate and does not make any mistakes. In fact, it is precisely based on this legal relationship that the land conflicts and fraudulent practices that occur in the north and south of China from Guangdong to Beijing are concentrated at the level of village cadres of village committees, rather than in villagers' groups and village group leaders. Relying solely on the information processed by others on an online search, Professor Zhou dared to arrogantly laugh at the formal legal provisions cited by others as "hard wounds" and "jokes" without looking at the law or reality. I really don't know what to say.

Although Professor Zhou has set up such a big own goal, I do not want to copy his logic and assert that his various views and his "slight discrimination" of overseas situations are therefore null and void. I believe that Professor Zhou will also be wary of his fast online search information in the future, check it, and increase a little respect for other people's research. I would also like to say that Professor Zhou's negligence and mistakes are not a big deal, but multimedia and scholars have used Professor Zhou's words to write articles about "hard wounds" and "jokes", but no one has done any examination of the original materials. this does show how impetuous today's academic and media environment has become.

The above we follow Professor Zhou's train of thought to clarify only two small problems, of course, it reminds us that no matter how much knowledge we have achieved, we still need to be rigorous in our attitude towards scholarship; we should leave leeway when we feel that the truth is in our hands; and the opinions of others have nothing to do with their character. It's just that in view of the fact that small problems are so perplexing, we will certainly be more dizzy and confused if we follow the train of thought set by Professor Zhou. Therefore, below I will focus on a few substantive issues of the debate, so that even if we do not reach a consensus, we can at least understand the differences.

One of the differences:

Farmland and rural houses enter the market, or the ownership of the building right?

Professor Zhou held high the banner of farmland and houses to enter the market and killed generals from the moral highlands, but his knife should not have been aimed at me. Because I have already made it clear in Professor Zhou Qiren's article that "the nature of illegal construction of agricultural land and agricultural houses in the market is completely different from that of houses with small property rights, and it is in line with the goal of reform and the development of market economy." from the direction, I have no objection. I also discussed the possible problems of farmland and houses entering the market under the current situation and how to solve them. So, why does Professor Zhou have to denounce me as a fellow traveler under the banner of farmland and farmhouses entering the market?

It turns out that what Professor Zhou is concerned about is not the transfer of agricultural land into the market. As I said before, the transfer of agricultural land limited to agricultural use is now surging all over the country, and the turnover has already exceeded 1/4. However, Professor Zhou is not interested in it. According to the current regulations, the transfer or transfer and recycling of farmers' own housing and homestead, although it is relatively complex, the document policy is also loosened, and pilot projects are being prepared. Professor Zhou's interest in this is also limited. What Professor Zhou is really interested in is how to remove the provision in the Land Management Law that agricultural land shall not be transferred for non-agricultural construction, or to change "no" to "can", so as to open the door for the transfer of agricultural land for non-agricultural construction. The separation of land ownership from development rights, the governance of land use and planning, and the lack of freedom of buildings, which I introduced and advocated, just stood in his way. Professor Zhou did not fight in the same place. Therefore, Professor Zhou said bitterly, "I think the worst thing is that the theory of architectural freedom is not free."

Judging from the road taken by countries that have completed urbanization, it is true that a large amount of agricultural land will be converted into urban construction in the process of urbanization. However, this mainly happens in cities and towns, especially around large and medium-sized cities. On the other hand, non-suburban farmland will still be used for agriculture, and more rural villages will be reclaimed into agricultural land. Part of the rural land in the outer suburbs will also be used for non-agricultural construction in the process of urbanization, but this is mainly due to the increase of roads and other public infrastructure and service land that must be increased with the development of rural modernization. Therefore, for the vast number of non-suburban rural areas, the value-added and changes of agricultural land and houses entering the market, whether because of planning and governance, or because of market laws, will be very limited. If we look at the road and the current situation of others, we can see that it must be a lie to say how much benefit the farmland and houses will bring to the farmers in the outer suburbs. What is really meaningful is the farmland and villages around cities and towns, especially around large and medium-sized cities. Therefore, Professor Zhou said that he was talking about agricultural land and houses, and his eyes were focused on the development of suburban land. He has organized continuous research over the years and has never left the suburbs of big cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu and Shenzhen. I am afraid this is the reason.

Thus it can be seen that some people cheered that the entry of farmland and farmhouses into the market is a blessing for 900 million farmers, which is obviously misleading the public. How agricultural land enters the market is only of great interest to tens of millions of aborigines and land investment speculators in suburban villages. Because of the rapid urbanization transformation, great structural changes have taken place in the value of land in a country. While the change in the value of real agricultural land and houses is limited, the value of agricultural land converted to urban construction will be increased by a hundred times or thousands of times. With the continuous urbanization and agglomeration of population and the accumulation of social public facilities, public services and public goods on a very small amount of urban construction land, commercial land in cities has become the most common form of wealth-making machines and wealth distribution.

Therefore, the real difference is that under the banner of farmland and rural houses entering the market, Professor Zhou should give a free hand to promote the land transfer and development of suburban villages in urban villages to enter the market. I think this involves a major wealth distribution of all the people. A small number of people must not be allowed to share the fat and go their own way. Therefore, although I support that agricultural land and rural houses can and should enter the market in the direction of reform, we should proceed cautiously in order, strictly distinguish between non-suburban areas, and distinguish between arable land and construction land under the banner of agricultural land. Even for land that can be developed for commercial and residential development, modern society cannot be governed without planning and volume ratio, so there is no right to build space on one's own land. And this is not only for farmers, but also for urban dwellers; not on public land in China, nor on private land in the West. This led to several critical articles by Professor Zhou to argue that "architecture is not free", expressing deep doubts about what I said about the lack of freedom of western architecture. After I introduced in detail the use and building governance of developed countries and East Asia, Professor Zhou taught this time that "when it comes to the subject of urbanization, isn't it more targeted to look at other countries' measures before the urbanization rate reaches 70%?" Their own urbanization rate is only less than 50%. Is it very enjoyable to move to a highly urbanized country with an urbanization rate of 80%, 90%, 90% and 90%, which is adopted very late? "

It seems that Professor Zhou has more or less checked the current situation of the developed countries I introduced, no longer denouncing it as "absurd" and "strange theory", but also reprimanded me for quoting the wrong time and historical stage of the situation. In fact, I originally introduced not only the judicial practice of land construction in the history of Europe and the United States, but also Japan and South Korea in East Asia and Taiwan of China, precisely because we are at the stage of the development of others a few decades ago. But Professor Zhou didn't like to hear it at that time. He must have forgotten what he said in the article "Building is not Free" six months ago. Because he said there, as far as he knows, the zoning and planning governance of the United States has become more and more relaxed since the last century. "under such circumstances, we are only afraid of misleading the readers by citing the classics of the United States precedents before the 1920s." It can be seen that as long as it is not in line with the fixed market creed of construction freedom in Professor Zhou's mind, it is not good for other people's cases and reality, even if it is too early.